


Your Lighthouse Keeper

by hope_in_the_dark



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Asexual Aziraphale (Good Omens), Asexual Crowley (Good Omens), Asexual Relationship, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Beards (Facial Hair), Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Tree, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Dog is Crowley and Aziraphale's in this fic because I like dogs and that's it, Facial Shaving, Fisherman Crowley, Hair Washing, Kissing, Lighthouse Keeper Aziraphale, M/M, Married Couple, Married Life, Oneshot, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Shaving, Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), Soft Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Tea, The Bentley is a boat, the lighthouse keeper (sam smith)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28136943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hope_in_the_dark/pseuds/hope_in_the_dark
Summary: Crowley is a fisherman, and his husband is a lighthouse keeper. This is a Christmas story.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 45
Kudos: 120
Collections: Good Omens Human AUs





	Your Lighthouse Keeper

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Here is a little Christmassy oneshot for all of you lovely people because I couldn't get [The Lighthouse Keeper](https://youtu.be/YYlTFYeWfhU) by the inimitable Sam Smith out of my head. I highly recommend following that link and giving the song a listen, but it's not necessary to understand this story! 
> 
> I hope all of you are well. It's been a rough year, but I hope that this short bit of softness brings you some holiday cheer. 
> 
> All my love,  
> Hope

Crowley stood at the top of the stairs in front of the cottage, thin fingers wrapped around a mug of dark coffee that spilled white curls of steam into the pale morning light. He was looking out at the grey seawater, the breeze that blew up over the cliffs buffeting his red hair.

Behind him, Ezra leaned against the white-painted doorframe of their small cottage. He watched Crowley silently, content to watch the sun catch gold in his husband’s hair. A blast of cold air rushed past Crowley and swirled into the cottage, brushing Ezra as it passed. Ezra shivered, tugging the open sides of his coat closed and doing up the buttons.

Crowley turned to look at him then, his amber-colored eyes soft. “Hello, angel.”

“Good morning.” Ezra padded out to join Crowley, slippered feet making soft noises on the stone. He laced his arm through Crowley’s elbow and pulled Crowley to him. Crowley made a soft humming noise in the back of his throat as he leaned down to press a kiss to the top of Ezra’s head. “Remind me what time you cast out today, dearest?”

“Seven,” Crowley said.

“Soon, then.”

“Mm,” said Crowley.

“You should get your things,” Ezra murmured into Crowley’s shoulder. “Head down to the dock.”

There was a pause, and then Crowley said, “Ask me not to go, Ezra.”

Ezra frowned. “Sorry?”

“Ask me not to go,” Crowley repeated. “Ask me not to leave you. Ask me to stay.”

“I would,” Ezra said slowly, “if I thought you could stay.”

“I could.”

“No, my darling.”

“I could… could stay here,” Crowley said. “Never have to leave you again. If you wanted.”

“You’re a fisherman, Crowley,” Ezra reminded him gently. “That’s where you work, you know.” He pointed to the waves, was silent for long enough for the sound of water crashing on rocks to reach their ears. “You belong out there. On the water, with your crew.”

“Belong _here,_ too,” Crowley protested. “With you.”

Ezra sighed and nuzzled Crowley’s shoulder. The wool of Crowley’s jumper scratched his nose.

“Of course you do.”

“Ask me to stay, then,” Crowley said, and there was an edge of desperation in his voice.

When Ezra looked up at him, Crowley was watching him.

“What’s brought this on, my dear?” In the five years they’d been married, Crowley had never been this reluctant to leave. He always knew that he was coming back, and he knew that Ezra would be there for him when he did. More than that, though, Ezra knew that Crowley loved the ocean. He loved the chaos of it, the unpredictability, the power. He’d come home after a few days at sea and regale Ezra with stories, talking excitedly about the cold spray of salted water against his face, the groaning of The Bentley’s fishing gear, the challenge of repairing nets, the drinking games he played with his young crew who called themselves the Them. Crowley loved the water, and he loved Ezra, Ezra knew both of these things to be true.

“It’s nearly Christmas, angel.”

“Yes,” Ezra said gently. “And?”

“And I want to be with you,” Crowley said, a near-growl. “I want… I want to put the wreath on the door. Want to go to town and see the kids do a rubbish job of caroling. Want to make mulled wine with you and fry up some fish and pull some winter vegetables from the greenhouse. Want to walk with you to the lighthouse, watch you work. Hold you in the window, see all the boats come into port. Curl up with you at night. I want to put up a bloody Christmas tree, Ezra, and I want to wrap presents for you and light a fire in the fireplace, and I want – I want to be _here._ I don’t want to go, angel. Not this time.”

Crowley was due back from this trip late in the evening on Christmas Eve, too late for him to do most of those things. Ezra had been planning to spend the days ahead of Christmas reading and working and walking Dog, the small terrier he and Crowley had adopted from a stray a few years earlier. He had been preparing himself for Crowley to leave, and he’d consoled his small sorrows with the knowledge that he would be the one to bring Crowley, The Bentley, and the Them back into port on Christmas Eve.

“I don’t want you to go,” Ezra confessed, and Crowley’s eyes brightened momentarily, “but you must. You know that.”

Crowley sighed, breath whistling through his teeth. “Yeah.”

“I’ll bring you home to me,” Ezra promised.

“I know.”

“I love you.”

Crowley’s lips curled upward at the corner, a ghost of a smile finally present on his lips. “Know that, too.”

Ezra buried his nose in Crowley’s shoulder once more, breathing in the scent of pine and sea and cinnamon. “And?”

“And I love you, too, angel,” Crowley said, his voice melodic with the shadow of a laugh.

“Good,” Ezra muttered. “Good.”

They stood there for a minute more, Crowley watching the sea as Ezra watched Crowley.

“I should go.”

“Yes,” said Ezra.

“Love you,” Crowley said again, quick and certain.

“And I you.”

Silently, Crowley led Ezra back inside. He collected his raincoat from the hook by the door, pulled on his knee-high boots, and reached for his bag of clothes and small gear. Dog danced around his feet, knocking into his shins, and Crowley knelt to scratch behind his black-and-white ears before standing to face Ezra.

Rising onto his toes, Ezra wrapped his arms around Crowley’s neck. They shared breath for a brief second, eyes meeting, and then Crowley closed the gap. Ezra’s eyes slid shut, and he kissed Crowley long and deep.

Crowley had a name for the kisses that they shared before he went to sea. He called them ‘tidal kisses,’ telling Ezra that they stuck in his mind while he was away and helped tide him over until he was home again. Ezra loved him for that.

All too soon, the kiss was over, and Crowley had slipped out the door like a current going out to sea. Moments later, Ezra heard the engine of Crowley’s car turn over, followed by the crunching of tyres on gravel as Crowley left the cottage and the lighthouse and Ezra behind.

*********

The lighthouse had been in Ezra’s family for generations. When he was a boy, his grandfather had shown him the gas lamps that they had once used, the chain that they pulled to make the light turn around. His father had taught him how to work the light, how to clean the mirror, and how to talk to the men at the docks over the radio. Ezra had taken over the lighthouse at nineteen when his father had become too ill to climb the many stairs to the top, and he’d been there ever since. He discovered the lighthouse’s strange quirks, and he’d fallen somewhat in love with it. Crowley teased him about it sometimes, saying that he loved the lighthouse more than he’d ever loved any human being, and Ezra would kiss him for the sole purpose of shutting him up.

On the first night that Crowley was at sea, Ezra made his way up to the top of his lighthouse at dusk with Dog trailing behind him. He wiped dust off the mirror, checked the bulb, and switched on the light, watching the beacon cast rays of light across the walls and out into the growing darkness. With a sigh, he trotted down to the floor below and entered the kitchenette. Dog settled onto the small tartan cushion on the far side of the small room, wagging his tail excitedly. Smiling, Ezra took a small biscuit out of the dog-shaped bowl that Crowley had put on the counter and tossed it to Dog, who devoured it in a few crunching bites. Ezra pulled a tin of chocolate digestive biscuits out of the cupboard for himself, setting two on a chipped ceramic plate as he flicked the switch on the electric kettle and filled a small metal infuser with loose black tea leaves.

When the tea was ready, Ezra whistled to Dog and climbed the stairs once more, settling into one of the two chairs near the window that faced the open ocean. His chair was soft and cushioned, upholstered with oatmeal-colored fabric. Crowley’s chair sat next to it, colored in a mottled black-and-red. It stood empty for a moment until Dog jumped up onto it, hanging his head over the arm so that he could lick a biscuit crumb off Ezra’s fingers.

With a laugh, Ezra scratched Dog under the chin and settled in, switching on the radio that sat on a small table next to him. He listened to the chatter of dockworkers, taking slow sips of his tea and counting the ships as they came in. He kept his eyes on the dark water, following every tiny light of each ship as they moved across the horizon and into port. He thought of Crowley, somewhere in the middle of the sea on his beautiful black boat, laughing with Adam and Pepper and Brian and Wensley.

 _I love you,_ Ezra thought fiercely, pointing his head in the direction he guessed to be close to where Crowley was, some many nautical miles off shore. He hoped that somehow, impossibly, Crowley could hear him.

********

Ezra woke in the early afternoon. He had come back to the cottage as dawn was breaking across the sky, sliding into his and Crowley’s bed and calling Dog up after him. Dog kept him company while Crowley was away, something for which Ezra was indescribably grateful. In the years before Crowley had come home from town in the pouring rain with the skinny, scraggly-looking pink-tongued dog, Ezra had missed Crowley so badly it hurt when he was off at sea. He still missed Crowley now, of course, but it helped to have someone else around for companionship. Dog was an attentive listener, ears perking up when Ezra spoke to him, and he was fond of settling on Ezra’s thighs when Ezra sat in the sitting room to read by the fire.

After Ezra had eaten breakfast, he and Dog began the long walk down the hill into town. Ezra was going to buy a wreath and a small tree from Shadwell, the gruff former-fisherman who ran the Christmas tree farm every winter. Ezra knew that if he offered Shadwell a cup of tea, Shadwell would load the wreath and tree on top of his car and give Ezra and Dog a ride back to the cottage by the lighthouse.

As they walked, Ezra told Dog that if he kept all of his paws on the ground when they crossed paths with other people, he’d buy him a special Christmas biscuit at the shop at the end of the street. (He would buy one anyway, but Dog didn’t need to know that.) Dog looked up at him, tongue hanging out of his mouth, and Ezra laughed. He kept talking the rest of the way into town, going on about everything and nothing. Dog didn’t seem to mind.

*********

It wasn’t until the third day that Ezra finally brought himself to start placing ornaments on the tree. Shadwell had brought it to the cottage, and Ezra had placed it in water and done nothing but stare at it for the two days that followed. He’d hung the wreath outside, securing it with fishing twine to the nail that Crowley had hung on the door the first Christmas they’d spent together after they were married, but the tree was something else entirely. The tree was something he and Crowley did together.

But Crowley wouldn’t be home in time to decorate the tree this year, and besides, it had started to rain. Ezra didn’t mind storms when Crowley was home; they would curl up by the fire together or sit in the window of the lighthouse, listening to the drumming of raindrops on the rooftop and watching for flashes of lightning, and it was a gentle and beautiful thing. When Crowley was gone, though, out on a ship in the middle of a stormy sea that tended to rage with the force of an angry god, Ezra couldn’t help but worry. So, as the rain beat down against the cottage, Ezra did what needed to be done. He decorated the tree, and he did his best not to worry about Crowley.

Ezra pulled the large cardboard boxes full of fairy lights and glass bulbs and wooden reindeer and small metal picture frames out of the closet in the bedroom, dragging them to the base of the tree and taking off the lids. Dog sniffed around, licking one of the sparkling red balls with an experimental touch of tongue to glass and finding it not to his taste. He settled onto a cushion near the window as Ezra lifted strands of lights and individual ornaments out of the boxes one by one, hanging each on the tree with a mathematical precision. Every time he came across one of ornaments that contained a photo of himself and Crowley, he pressed the pad of his finger to the glass covering the image of his husband’s face, and he thought _I love you_ in the direction of the sea.

He had to fetch a chair from the kitchen to reach the upper branches, and he cooed at the tree as he bent its branches to fill them with color and light.

When he finished, the floor near the tree was coated in a fine layer of glitter and pine needles. A single ornament remained in its box, resting on the floor beneath the base of the tree. It was the angel. Ezra didn’t touch it, didn’t even consider placing it on the very top of the tree. The angel was Crowley’s job, as was telling the joke that accompanied the act each year.

Ezra hummed ‘Greensleeves’ to himself as he hung three stockings from the mantle over the fireplace. Crowley’s was a dark blue, the name stitched clumsily in silver thread across the top above a wonky-shaped snowflake. ( _“Not much for arts and crafts,”_ Crowley had said the year he made his stocking, and Ezra had called it beautiful and kissed him.) In contrast, Ezra’s was a bright cherry red, his own name written in precise letters over the image of a candy cane. The third stocking was for Dog – Crowley had insisted that they buy one, and together, they’d dipped Dog’s paw into wet paint and pressed it into the green fabric so that it bore a small white pawprint.

The rain continued all through the night. In a white lighthouse on a wind-whipped cliff, Ezra sat in his chair, and he prayed.

*********

The fourth day was the last day without Crowley, and Ezra spent it writing poems. They weren’t his own, so it is perhaps more accurate to say that he was _copying_ poems, but that is almost entirely a difference of semantics. When sunlight broke through grey clouds and formed a web of silver linings, it slid into the bedroom window of the cottage and found Ezra bent over a small leatherbound book, writing beautiful words in his clean, precise script. Each page was full of poems that made Ezra think of Crowley, and each poem was scratched into the thick textured paper in a different colored ink. Ezra thought that Crowley might bring this book with him to sea and turn its pages at night, tracing the words Ezra had written whenever he missed him.

Dusk found the book completed and wrapped tightly in brown paper, tucked away beneath the branches of the Christmas tree. Ezra looked at the package as he buttoned his coat, and he thought (for the hundredth, or thousandth, or millionth time that day) _I love you._ And then he stepped out into the cold and wind, and he walked up the stone path to the lighthouse.

“Hello, old girl,” Ezra said to it, laying a hand on its cold white walls as he slid his old brass key into the lock. The door opened with a click, and the lighthouse answered Ezra with a creak of its door hinges as he entered. “It’s time to bring him home.”

*********

It was well and truly dark by the time Ezra saw The Bentley’s lights appear off the shoreline. Crowley had long ago decided to mount a blue light on the ship’s bow, a special light that he had installed only for Ezra. This blue light was flashing now, moving ever closer, and Ezra’s heart began to race.

He knew what the message was, of course. It was the same as always. One word in Morse code, a series of dots and dashes. Four short flashes, three long flashes, two long flashes, one short flash, the sequences broken up by a short pause between each set of flashes.

H, O, M, E. Crowley had come home.

Ezra watched the blue light until it vanished from his view, disappearing beneath the cliff as The Bentley pulled into port. He rushed downstairs to the second level and stood by the window that faced the cottage, radio tucked under one arm and Dog bouncing along beside him, and he waited. If someone had asked Ezra if he moved while he waited for Crowley to come home, if he breathed, if he thought any words beside _I love you,_ Ezra would not have been able to answer.

Finally, an eternity and also a mere hour later, the headlights of Crowley’s car came into view. Ezra was down the stairs before he had registered that he’d begun to move, and he was shouting a greeting before he’d even gotten outside, and then Crowley was _there._ Crowley was in his arms, and he was in Crowley’s, and Ezra really, properly breathed for the first time in days.

Crowley’s skin smelled like cheap soap and sea water and mildly (not unpleasantly) of fish, and when Ezra kissed him, a few days’ worth of red stubble scratched his cheeks. Ezra kept his arms around Crowley’s neck long past when the kiss was broken, stretched up onto his toes and clinging to Crowley’s wiry frame. He toyed with the hair at the back of Crowley’s neck, winding his fingers through it and feeling the salt that coated the strands.

“Missed you,” Crowley was saying, “love you. Angel.”

“I missed you too, my love,” Ezra said. “My love.”

It had only been a handful of days since they had seen each other, and Ezra knew that, but it felt like a small forever. Crowley was often gone for longer – in the summer months, The Bentley and its crew traveled further down the coast, sometimes gone for a week or more. But in the winter, when the cold nipped at Ezra’s skin and nights lasted longer than days, when storms caused sky-high waves of frigid water to wage war on unsuspecting ships, even the shortest trips felt like they lasted months. And it was Christmastime now, and when Crowley had left, he’d taken the warmth of the season with him.

But he was back now, and he was pressing a kiss to the spot behind Ezra’s ear, and he was smiling, and Ezra was warm again.

*********

“Come on,” Ezra said firmly, giving Crowley a small shove in the direction of the claw-footed tub in their ensuite. It was slowly filling with hot water, bubbles rising higher by the second. “Get in, then.”

“I can bathe myself,” Crowley grumbled, but he was grinning. Ezra gave him another push, rolling his eyes when Crowley wiggled his eyebrows at Dog.

A few moments later, Crowley climbed into the bathtub and settled his long body down under the surface of the water. He sighed, head dropping back against the edge as his eyes slid closed.

“I’m married to the most handsome man in the world,” Ezra said.

Crowley cracked one of his golden eyes open, squinting at Ezra suspiciously.

“Nah,” he said. “That’s me you’re talking about.”

Ezra swatted Crowley gently on the shoulder, earning a wide grin from Crowley.

“You must learn to take a compliment, darling,” Ezra chided.

There was a waterlogged snorting noise from the tub. Crowley had slid down into the water, sunk so far into the bubbles that his eyes were the only visible feature of his handsome face. Slowly, Crowley shifted his head so that his mouth was above the water, peaks of bubbles clinging to his small beard.

“Known me almost ten years,” Crowley reminded Ezra. “When’ve I ever been able to take a compliment?”

Ezra chuckled and shook his head, turning away from the tub for a moment. He gathered a few bottles from the shelf next to the sink, choosing teakwood-scented shampoo and conditioner and the tiny glass bottle of expensive hair oil that Crowley only ever let Ezra put in his hair. He also pulled a clean towel out from the cupboard beside the mirror, and then he settled onto a stool next to the bathtub.

“I’m playing the long game with you, dearest,” Ezra said, filling a large pitcher with warm water from the bathtub’s tap. “One of these days, I’ll break you down, and you won’t argue with me when I tell you how beautiful you are.”

Crowley snorted again, so Ezra dumped the pitcher unceremoniously over his red head. Water ran over the planes of Crowley’s face and trickled into his mouth, and he spluttered and coughed until he dissolved into laughter.

“Not very angelic of you, that.”

“No,” Ezra said with a smile, filling the pitcher once more, “it wasn’t. Head back, my love.”

Crowley did as he was told, and this time Ezra poured water out of the pitcher in a steady stream. It soaked Crowley’s shoulder-length curls, flattening them and changing them from a vibrant red to a darker auburn. Ezra set the pitcher on the floor and picked up the bottle of shampoo, pouring a coin-sized amount into the palm of his hand before working it through Crowley’s hair.

Neither of them spoke for many minutes. The radio sat on the floor near the door, volume turned down low enough that it wasn’t abrasive but still loud enough that Ezra could hear if the dockworkers called to him because of an emergency. Ezra was focused mostly on the task at hand, weaving his fingers through the tangles in Crowley’s hair, massaging Crowley’s scalp with his fingertips, running a wet brush through the long locks when he’d washed the conditioner away. Crowley relaxed against the side of the tub, making small humming noises every few moments, and Ezra loved him.

“All right, my dear,” Ezra said eventually, placing the brush on the countertop behind him. “I’ll put the kettle on. Wash and get dressed, and I’ll bring you a cup of tea and finish with your hair.”

“Mm,” Crowley grunted, forcing his eyes open and blinking at the light. “Love you, angel.”

“I love you, too.”

*********

Crowley was perched on the edge of the counter in the loo, swinging his black-jogger-clad legs and bare feet back and forth. Ezra stood between his legs, screwing the cap onto the little bottle of hair oil. Two cups of half-finished tea sat cooling next to Crowley’s hip, the edges of each cup touching the other in a gentle kiss.

“Shave?” Ezra asked, and Crowley scrubbed a hand over his face. “Or beard oil?”

Crowley tilted his head consideringly. “Dunno. What d’you think?”

Ezra knew all too well that Crowley was an extremely changeable being. More than once he’d sent Crowley into town to fetch something from the shops and Crowley had come back with a new tattoo on his bicep or his hair cropped close to his head. These things were surprises, but never unpleasant ones, because Ezra was in love with Crowley exactly as Crowley was, unpredictability and all. These changes in appearance applied to Crowley’s facial hair, too; he sported a beard sometimes, keeping it trimmed along his jaw or shaved down to a shadow, but at other times he liked a clean face. For a period of a few months in their second year of marriage, Crowley had decided to shave all of his face except for the spot above his lip, which meant that Ezra got to discover that a mustache wasn’t his favorite of his husband’s many looks.

So Ezra said, “I think you look lovely as you are, but if you keep the beard, you _must_ oil it and keep it soft. I won’t kiss a cactus, darling.”

Crowley tossed his head back and laughed, hair tossing fine droplets of water across the mirror. “Shave it, then.”

Ezra kissed the tip of Crowley’s nose and bent down to retrieve his own old-fashioned shaving kit from the bottom drawer of the counter. Crowley typically shaved with canned shaving cream and plastic disposable razors, but Ezra preferred the rhythm and artistry of a straight razor. While he mixed a lather in a small bowl, he soaked a small towel in hot water and pressed it over the bottom half of Crowley’s face, moving one of Crowley’s long-fingered hands over it to keep it in place. He could feel Crowley’s lips curl into a smile beneath his fingers and the thick fabric of the cloth, and he smiled back.

When Crowley’s face was damp and warm, Ezra brushed the lather over his husband’s beard. The handle of the brush clinked against the bowl, and Ezra pulled his straight blade of the box that held his shaving kit and flicked it open. Crowley held unusually still; his soft eyes were fixated on Ezra’s lips as Ezra moved the blade in the first smooth movement across his skin.

Ezra had done this for Crowley on a few occasions, and while he was accustomed to the smooth curves and rounded edges of his own face, he liked the way the brush and blade slid over the angles and sharp lines that made up Crowley’s jaw and cheekbones and chin. The process of shaving was methodical, muscle-memory driven and peaceful, and the soft sound of metal moving against hair and skin merged with the crackle of voices over Ezra’s radio.

Small red hairs and clumps of white lather ran down the drain, washed away by running water, and Ezra handed Crowley a cloth with which to wipe off the remnants of lather that clung to his nose and neck and sideburns. Crowley did, and Ezra cleaned and put away his blade, bowl, and brush.

“Thank you,” Crowley said gently, and when he kissed Ezra this time, Ezra felt nothing but smooth skin against his nose and lips.

Ezra brushed the back of his hand over Crowley’s cheek, making Crowley shiver. He trailed his fingers over Crowley’s lips next, and Crowley kissed them.

“Moisturize,” Ezra said suddenly, and Crowley grinned.

“What?”

“You need to moisturize, love.”

Crowley stuck his chin out, amber eyes twinkling. “You do it.”

Ezra did, rubbing a few pumps of facial lotion into Crowley's skin and watching Crowley's eyelashes flutter shut. When he was done, Crowley hopped off the counter and linked their fingers together, tugging Ezra out of the bathroom.

“Lighthouse?” Crowley asked.

“Lighthouse.”

*********

It was just after dawn on Christmas Day. Eggs were crackling in the oil of a frying pan when Crowley called from the sitting room.

“Hey, you didn’t put the angel on.”

“I know,” Ezra said. “That’s yours.”

The wood planks of the cottage floor squeaked faintly under Crowley’s weight as he made his way into the kitchen. His strong arms wrapped around Ezra’s soft middle, and his bony chin came to rest on top of Ezra’s shoulder.

“Missed you,” Crowley whispered, and Ezra couldn’t be sure if he was referring to the few moments when they were in separate rooms or the many days when he had been at sea.

“I missed you too,” Ezra said, deciding that he would respond to the meaning of the latter option. He flipped the eggs in the pan. “So very, very much.”

“Someday I’ll stop leaving.” Crowley sighed, his breath skating over the skin of Ezra’s neck. “Give The Bentley to Adam or Wensley. Stay with you here. You can teach me how to work the lighthouse, and maybe I can weasel my way into that love affair that the two ‘f you have got going on.”

“I don’t think there’s much chance of that,” Ezra laughed. “She gets jealous. She didn’t much like me at first – her light used to break for no reason at all when my father took ill.”

“I’ll have to have a chat with her, then,” Crowley said, nuzzling Ezra’s curls. “Come to some sort of arrangement.”

Ezra chuckled again and slid the eggs out of the pan. “I suppose you will have to, yes. But until that day, you will continue to go to sea, and I will always bring you home.”

There was a pause, and then, “Yeah, angel. You will.”

Ezra and Crowley carried their plates to the small table near the Christmas tree, walking with their bodies so close they were nearly touching. Dog followed them, nose in the air, and Ezra broke off a piece of sausage and tossed it to him. Crowley set his plate down on the table but remained standing, gesturing with arms thrown wide to the tree.

“Gotta put the angel on the tree,” he explained.

Ezra sat at the table facing his husband, crossing one leg over the other. “Go on, then.”

Crowley dug the angel out of the box and fixed its blond curls, and then he stretched up onto his toes and set the little figure on the topmost branch of the tree with a triumphant grin. He rocked back onto his heels, burying his hands in his pockets, and winked at Ezra.

“It’s a pretty angel, that one,” Crowley said, sauntering over to the table, “but not as pretty as _mine._ ”

And then he leaned down and kissed Ezra sweetly on the lips, and Ezra kissed him back. It was the same joke every year, and it always had the same ending, and Ezra loved Crowley for it.

*********

They woke just after noon, Ezra curled up against the long line of Crowley’s body.

“Happy Christmas, angel,” Crowley said, voice rough with sleep.

Ezra turned around and planted a kiss on Crowley’s lips. He brushed a stray curl out of Crowley’s eyes, tucking it behind a delicate metal-pierced ear. Burying his head in Crowley's chest, Ezra breathed deep, inhaling the scent of teakwood and sea salt and home. 

“Happy Christmas, my love.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out with me on [Tumblr!](https://hope-inthedark.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Also, if you would like to make any sort of creative work (art, podfic, whatever) based on this or any of my stories, consider this blanket permission to do so! I only ask that you would tag me in your work so that I can see it and share it! Thank you for being here, and thank you for reading. I hope you are having the best day!


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